Bennington

I love Vermont, upstate New York too. I'd probably hate living here, but every time I visit I think "Yeah, this would be cool." I went to practice in Bennington today, and had a blast. 

WORKOUTS

Not bad this week: a gym workout, a 13 mile bike ride, yoga, and push-ups every day. 

TECHNIQUE

I was going to work a straight down wrist snap in, like that Saber blow to the middle of the forehead,  imore as an experiment than anything else, because Gui and I were discussing it the other day, and because it seems like a good attack out of the A Frame. I also wanted to work on some low line thrusts. Neither one worked, but they didn't get me killed either. 

FIGHTING

There were four of us in armor: myself, Sir Alecander de Hauteville, and his two squires Collin and Dana. I fought a set of passes with each oft hem and then we did a bear pit. Each of us held the field against the other three. We did two rounds of that, rested, and then did two more. It was great exercise. I won my early fights, lost most of my later ones. 

Dana is a bull. He rushes in swinging really hard, goes belly to belly with you, thrusts low line (sometimes in the cup) and tries to muscle you around. He uses a really big strapped kite, and is hard to break down. He got me with a really good face thrust once, took my leg and crushed me once. 

Collin uses a center grip kite with a sword leg forward lead but keeps his sword behind him--a weak high open form, which is one of the hardest to use. His off side head and arm were very exposed. I killed him with two old school techniques--a straight Bellatrix combo--off side head, tear drop return, on side head: and a molinee that flashes the tip in the face and just follows up with a snap (I killed Alexander with that too). 

Alexander has changed his style since we last fought. He uses weak high closed form. He also no longer tries to crush and out thug his opponents. He has developed a very fast, elegant saber style offense. It fits him really well. He is one of those big fighters wight fast hands. My best win against him was when I took his leg then through Fast Eddy's shot that misses the off side head, changes direction really quickly, then becomes an onside snap. His best kill on me was a wicked hard off side rib shot where he faked me out of my socks by striking onside head (I blocked with my sword in tierce) faked the snap (I put up the block in quinte) the he hit me in the off side ribs (and I buckled in pain). :-) 

The drill we did, essentially fight three fights, rest two, fight one, rest two, fight three, was really really good. I needed some work against the Northern Region style, and I just needed the helmet time after a layoff due to Spring Break 

Afterword we went to Madison Brewing Co., a local brew pub. I had a very good burger, and tasted both the IPA and Old 76, very nice. 

My next time on armor should be Wednesday Night at Nutley. It is exactly three weeks till Crown.